The Private and Public Ego

How we deceive ourselves and others

From the time that we’ve become aware of our distinctness, our uniqueness, our Ego started its formation. We’ve gathered information that has constructed our views of ourselves, and also integrated others’ feedback — whether that’s direct or indirect, intentional or involuntary, purposeful or unintentional.

Thus, gradually, we have created a Private — or personal — Ego, and a Public — or projected — Ego. Our Private Ego is the way we choose to look at ourselves — ranging from character traits to character flaws, individual strengths to individual foibles. Conversely, our Public Ego is our attempt to persuade others in how to see us — such as being popular, being hard-working, or being independent.

Our Private Egos — how good we think we look, how cool we think we are, how successful we think we’ve become — are influenced (to some degree) by self-deception. Many times, we overestimate our appearance, our social status, our professional accomplishments. Additionally, we tend to downplay, disregard, or just neglect to acknowledge the attributes, the beliefs, the habits, that do harm or are just unhelpful. These various types of self-deception are in-the-works because they protect and shield our — frankly put — vulnerable, brittle, and fragile Ego.

Our Private Ego catalyzes the agenda of our Public Ego, which is the face we display, the person we project, the image we convey. Our Public Ego wants to assert itself, share its wonderfulness, show the world its specialness. It urges to do this especially when interacting and engaging with others: at a get-together, on a date, with some friends, or even in a job interview. We want others to see us as capable, confident, and exceptional.

Different personalities will attempt to accomplish different semblances. A man might want others to conclude that he is strong, funny, superior in-a-sense, professionally successful, and so forth; while a woman might want others to think of her as caring, kind, dainty, a good mother, and so forth. A young man could desire others to acknowledge his athletic prowess, his coolness, and his way with the ladies; and an adolescent girl might hope that others see her as fun, cute, and popular.

These two concepts discussed continuously interplay off each other and fluctuate dependent on each other. If Mark gets a 91 on his English paper, he will feel good about himself (Private Ego), and then want to boast to his buddies at lunch about it (Public Ego). Further, if Mark wins his baseball game later that afternoon over their school’s crosstown rivals, he’ll be quite pleased with how well he pitched (Private Ego) and he’ll extend this satisfaction on social media (Public Ego).

This ego-assertion also applies to disagreeableness, difficulty, and disappointment. For example: Samantha starts hanging with and going out with this guy she met a few months ago at a casual party. Because of this, her Private Ego will uptick due to his attention and solicitousness, and her Public Ego will press her to share the details of their time together with her girlfriends. Haplessly and suddenly, he suspends all communication, and — accordingly — they stop seeing each other. Sam tells herself that she didn’t really like him and that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway (Private-Ego-self-deception). It was him who was the issue, not her. And this is what she tells her girlfriends, minimizing his importance, guarding herself, and dismissing their developing bond (Public Ego).

In another instance, Kelly — over some time — develops quite a following on Instagram. She gets over a thousand followers and, with that, her “Likes” rocket into the hundreds on an average post. She posts pictures of herself, and some with friends of hers; a lot of guys “Like” these individual poses she captures and make flattering comments, too. Thus, her Public Ego — her likability, her looks, her desirability — gets caressed, prodded, and attended-to. And from this, she thinks better of herself: her self-confidence gets elevated, her self-concept becomes more enhancing (Private Ego).

This discussion is important and relevant because many aren’t aware of the subtle but impactful influence our individual Egos have on what we say, what we do, how we interact, how we think. Our Egos are like a parasite that reaches for things, seeks towards titles, wishes of places to be, craves at possessions to get, longs to end up there. This leaves us restless, implacable, insatiable, somewhat empty, and somewhat malcontent.

It takes unremitting work to keep convincing, proving, swaying everybody that you’re doing great, that you are great, that you are happy. One could say it’s a taller-task to believe yourself that you are all those things — that you have such self-confidence, self-regard, and self-stability.

But one is better-off taking an honest look-in, a clear look-at, to look-out for oneself, in order to better oneself, improve oneself, to live better, to think more closely to The Truth. This introspective practice takes time and effort and discipline; yet, it’s superior to the aforementioned self-deception, the self-fooling that our Egos — Private and Public — live by.